Designing with Love
What does it take to design learning experiences that truly work? Join Jackie Pelegrin, award-winning instructional designer and Grand Canyon University (GCU) adjunct instructor, as she explores instructional design, e-learning, and AI integration. Expect actionable tips, real-world insights, and conversations with students, alumni, and industry leaders shaping the future of learning.
Episodes
145 episodes
A Name Can Be the First Blueprint for Identity With Dr. Tamara Nall
A suffix can look like a tiny detail on paper, but it can carry an entire family story. Jackie sits down with Dr. Tamara Nall to talk about Junia, a formal naming tradition designed to give daughters the kind of visible legacy marker that “Juni...
Myth: Assessments Must Be Tests to Be Valid
A quiz can be quick, clean, and easy to score, but does it actually prove learning? We take on a stubborn myth in instructional design and education: that assessments must be tests to be valid. In this episode, Jackie explains why tests are so ...
A Master’s Program Can Reveal Your Instructional Design Path With Naomi Allen
You can feel the moment when a career finally makes sense: you read a course list, something clicks, and you realize there’s a name for the work you’ve wanted to do all along. That’s the energy behind Jackie's conversation with Naomi Allen, who...
Myth: More Content Means More Learning
More slides do not equal more learning, and if you have ever felt pressured to “add just one more resource,” you already know how quickly a course can turn into a content dump. We take on a stubborn instructional design myth: the idea that pili...
Human-Governed AI for Learning Design With James Gilchrist
AI can hand you a polished outline, a full course draft, and a dozen “best practice” scenarios in seconds. The hard part is deciding whether any of it is worth a learner’s time. Jackie sat down with James Gildrist, founder of Lighthouse L&D...
Myth: Learning Styles Should Drive Design Decisions
If you’ve ever heard someone say “I’m a visual learner,” you’ve seen how quickly learning style labels can shape training decisions. In this episode, Jackie unpacks a persistent instructional design myth: that learning styles should drive how w...
Lead Without a Title With Darrell Williams
The fastest way to become a trusted leader isn’t getting promoted. It’s becoming the person people run to when something hurts, and you can help fix it.Jackie sat down with Darrell Williams, a master certified life coach and longtime mi...
Myth: Good Teaching Equals Good Instructional Design
Good teaching is powerful, but it can also hide a trap: when a class goes well, we assume the design must be strong. Jackie unpacks a common myth in instructional design and education that shows up everywhere from K-12 to corporate training and...
Alumni Engagement That Works With Jennifer Cunningham
Most schools and nonprofits don’t have an “engagement problem” they have a follow-up problem. If you’ve ever gone to a campus event, felt a quick burst of nostalgia, and then never heard anything meaningful again, you’ve seen the gap firsthand....
Myth: Technology Automatically Improves Learning
A shiny new tool can feel like instant progress, but what if it quietly makes your course harder to learn? Jackie is tackling one of the most stubborn myths in instructional design and education: the idea that technology automatically improves ...
Human Connection in Teaching With Lou Hirsch
Most of us can remember a teacher who noticed us, but we struggle to remember the worksheet, the lecture slide, or the exact content on the exam. That’s where this conversation with Dr. Lou Hirsch lands: the real unit of change in higher educat...
Myth: Accessibility Is Optional If Your Learners Don't Request It
The fastest way to lock learners out of your course is to wait for them to ask for access. We’re tackling a stubborn myth in instructional design and education: “Accessibility is optional if learners don’t request it.” It sounds reasonable on p...
Inside Pictory: Simple AI Workflows for Educators and Teams With Vikram Chalana
What if making great learning videos felt like finishing a slide deck—familiar, fast, and oddly satisfying? Jackie sat down with Pictory co‑founder Vikram Chalana to unpack a clear path from messy tools to simple, repeatable workflows that help...
Myth: Online Learning Is Less Effective Than In-Person
The fastest way to kill a good learning goal is to blame the format instead of fixing the design. We’re kicking off a new series on myths in instructional design and education by taking on one of the biggest, most stubborn claims out there: onl...
Accessibility as a Habit, Not a Hurdle With Maxwell Ivey
Accessibility doesn’t have to feel like a mountain you climb alone. Jackie sat down with accessibility advocate Maxwell Ivey to turn big ideas into small, repeatable steps that make your website and content welcoming to every user. Instead of c...
Your 90-Day AI-Ready Plan: Skills, Systems, and Proof
AI tools are getting faster, louder, and harder to ignore, but that doesn’t mean your growth has to feel chaotic. We wrap the AI-Ready Designer Series with a clear 90-day plan that turns experimentation into a repeatable practice you can actual...
Magnetic Talks That Move People With Dr. Danny Brassell
What if your best presentation didn’t just earn applause—it moved people to act? Jackie sat down with Dr. Danny Brassell to map a clearer path from inspiration to conversion, blending hard-won classroom lessons with decades on the stage to show...
Measuring AI's Impact on the L&D Team
AI can make instructional design feel faster overnight, but speed is the easiest thing to celebrate and the easiest thing to misunderstand. When leaders ask whether AI is truly helping learning and development teams, “We used it a lot” is not a...
Writing That Sticks: Using ARCS With Ruth Douthitt
Ever watch a promising writing class lose steam by midterm? We’ve been there, and we built this conversation to flip that script using the ARCS model—Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction—as a practical blueprint for motivated, higher-...
Working With IT, Security, and Procurement: The New Collaboration Trio
AI tools can make learning design faster and more creative, but the moment a tool touches prompts, uploads, learner responses, employee information, or system integrations, approvals can feel like a hard stop. We talk through the real shift man...
Accessibility Is a Competitive Edge With Maxwell Ivey
Accessibility isn’t a box to tick at launch; it’s the backbone of products people actually trust. Jackie sat down with Maxwell “The Blind Blogger” Ivey—founder of The Accessibility Advantage and longtime advocate for inclusive digital ...
AI Tutors, Coaches, and Practice Bots: When They Help and When They Don't
A bot can sound warm, responsive, and confident, and still teach the wrong thing. That’s the tension we dig into as we explore AI tutors, AI coaches, and practice bots through the lens that matters most to instructional designers: practice desi...
Designing Learning That Actually Changes Behavior With Dr. Steven Linley
Training that doesn’t change behavior is just content, and content alone won’t move a business metric. Jackie sat down with Dr. Steven Linley, a learning strategist and adult learning expert, to unpack how to turn “we need training” into perfor...
From Content Creator to Learning Architect: The AI-Era Shift
AI can generate outlines, scripts, quizzes, scenarios, and slide drafts in minutes. That sounds like freedom, until you realize the real danger is volume: more content, more assets, more “resources” that don’t actually change what learners do. ...
Assess What Matters In An AI World With Hamza Sami
What if assessment made thinking visible and turned AI into a learning partner instead of a shortcut? Jackie sat down with Hamza Sami to close our series by unpacking practical ways to design for real understanding—where reasoning, judgment, an...
